Lighthouse Inn and Bowen's Inn Destroyed

An ill wind blew away from her two Solomon's Restaurants:  Joannie Stone, owner of Stoney's and Solomon's Pier, arrived to comfort Joan Simmons and Richard Fischer. Right, happier days for the late Tony with Joan Simmons, owners of Bowen's Inn.  They are standing in the area of the origin of the fire.

 ST. MARY'S TODAY photos

Icons lost to blowing fire

ST. MARY’S TODAY

SOLOMON’S ISLAND --- Scott Belanger, 46, looked on as the smoldering fire continued to nibble whatever was left of his condominium at 14644 Solomon’s Island Rd, next to the Lighthouse Inn Wednesday afternoon.

“Everything is gone,” he said.

The fire completely devoured Lighthouse Inn, Bowen’s Inn bar and Belanger’s home as the stench of leaking gas and ash hung over the Solomon’s Island..

“A friend of mine called to say the Lighthouse was on fire, and I rushed down here,” Belanger who works for DRS Technologies in Lexington Park said. He said a friend had earlier called to inform him Bowen’s Inn was on fire, but the second call that informed him of the Lighthouse Inn fire got him on his toes.

“Everything was new. I moved here last summer after my divorce,” Belanger, who grew up in Baltimore, said.

Fire hero, deputy fire marshal Faron Taylor said, “It’s significant amount of damage.” He said a team of fire marshals were at this point of time working to ascertain the point of origin of the fire. “Once that is determined, we will try to ascertain how the fire started.” He said that investigation is based on witness reports, forensic tests and examination of the physical damages.

Taylor said the estimated damages were worth  $5 million.

Power and gas supply was stopped to the entire neighborhood at 1:30 pm as a precautionary measure.

 David Loewensteiner, research assistant at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory heaved a sigh of relief he was safe and none was hurt in the fire.

Loewensteiner, 27, of Lusby, said the fire started at 12:30 and he was there at the scene within minutes.

“It spread really fast,” he said. “I watched it all.”

Loewensteiner said, “The wind was pushing embers and ashes and started a grassfire.” He said the lab workers got fire extinguishers and quelled the grass fires before the arrival of the firefighters. “Bowen’s bar is also gone.”

Lighthouse Inn executive chef David Lombardi was working in the kitchen at the time the fire started.

“The kitchen started to fill up with smoke coming through the hood system,” Lombardi, 32, originally of New York but who now lives in Langley, said.

Lombardi said he himself, the general manager and two carpenters working on the kitchen floor were in the building when the fire started. “The general manager came and said ‘Get the hack out of the building’.”

He said as soon as he came out of the building one of the gas tanks blew up. “The second one blew up a few minutes later,” he said.

Lombardi said the carpenters said the fire had started at Bowen’s first. “The way the wind is blowing, I don’t know why it should have been affected.”

Lombardi hoped the restaurant would be rebuilt within three minutes by the time of the Memorial Day.

He said his employers have been generous serving meals free of cost to more than 800 people on Thanksgiving Day.

Lombardi said the ovens in the kitchen were up for barely 20or 30 minutes and that the fire in no way started inside the kitchen. “The fire came from outside the building, either from the gas lines outside the restaurant or Bowens.”

Belanger said his son Kayle, 12, was at school at the time of the fire. The most precious loss was sports memorabilia. “I had Ray Lewis autographed pictures.”

Merchants in the neighborhood were sorry for the losses to Richard Fischer, owner of the Lighthouse Inn and Joan Simmons, who operated the Bowen’s Inn bar.

“They were old icons in Solomon's Island. Both of them,” said Joannie Stone, who operates both Solomon's Pier and Stoney’s Seafood. “It’s very sad.”

Stone said Simmons was trying to take care of Bowen’s Inn after her husband passed away three years ago. “Mr Fischer has cancer and now this has happened to him.”

 
This view of the remnants of the Bowens Inn which was destroyed by the winds on the Ides of March was taken from the third floor of the still standing Bowens Inn Hotel.
ST. MARY'S TODAY photo by James Antone